Pattern Passion
He was a three. I realized with a little shiver. A metal-legged spider scampered up the ladder of my spine and curled itself into a cold, tingling ball just beneath the back of my skull. A perfect, perfect three. As humans, we like threes, but rarely have I encountered such a dedicated one. He got […]
Objects of Pleasure
1760, Kyoto Yoshida Ginjiro’s craft obsessed him. From the moment he was apprenticed with old Watanabe, the shell of the venerable tortoise fascinated him. Hard and durable when cool, pliant and malleable after boiling in water, it could be cut with a saw, curled, bent, embossed, engraved, textured and polished. It could put to a […]
The Other Side
Before Lucrezia Borgia died, she made sure to have a priest at the ready. It was her eighth child and she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to make it through this one. Having committed more sins than she could remember, including murder, incest and, well – too many to remember, actually – she thought […]
Shellshock
Although it was thrilling to be a stranger in a strange land, there was a hollow disassociative feeling that accompanied it and grew as time went by. As much as I have loved Saigon, my first year there was not wholly a positive experience. I was horribly culture-shocked: days on end of listening to nothing […]
River Mother
He came to her as he always had done, long before the sun rose, while the frogs and the crickets still sang in the pond behind her house. This time, for the first time, he didn’t come alone. * * * Her village was a poor one – poor and useless –like her. Her grandmother […]
Not About Flowers
“El numero 17 quiere agua con gas,” shouted Don Ignacio as Leonora walked by. “Ahora.” She hated the way he just barked everything at her, as if she were a soldier. The pay at the Parador was good, and she got a little more, because she spoke English, but it was only a summer job […]
Better Left Unsaid
He has that look, you know, that perfect everything-in-the-right place look: the suit, the steel-rimmed glasses, the conservative tie, the neatly trimmed mustache, the gray, receding hairline and the slight paunch. Sitting next to him at the dentist’s office, unable to concentrate on the magazine in my lap which does nothing to distract me from […]
Performance
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you will know that I am unnaturally addicted to my online writer’s group. Anyway, we’re having something of a game. A type of ‘tag’. Basically, one writer writes a first chapter, and the next writer has to follow it up. I was number two in the slot, […]
The Ship’s Figurehead
The call came in at eleven p.m. on a Saturday night, when all hell was breaking loose uptown. A full moon in August always brings out the lunatics, but this call came from pier 18, down at the docks. Detective Shirts and I arrived on the scene just after midnight. The tramp steamer, the SS […]
Visitors From Japan
Sam adjusted the lapels of her fake kimono in front of the mirror in the staff room. It wasn’t really a kimono. For a start, it barely covered her ass, but Mr. Fujimori, the owner of the Ichibankan sushi bar, insisted on the uniform. He said it made the Japanese businessmen who frequented the restaurant […]